Los Gatos Museum Shows Wide Variety of Modern Glass

"Dangerous Opportunity" is a collaboration by Susan Longini and Kathleen Elliot on display in Los Gatos. Photo by Keay Edwards

It’s hard to believe, looking at the variety of work shown in ‘Hot Spot: Bay Area Art Glass’ at the Museums of Los Gatos, or its high quality, that the entire studio glass art movement harks back only to 1962. This exhibit features work by some of the originators of the art form and some of the younger proponents.

Consider the work of Marvin Lipofsky, who began working in the field the very year of its birth and whose colorful sculptures can suggest sea creatures, otherworldly plants, or geological formations morphing into jewelry.

Or that of Johnathon Schmuck, who began studying geology in 1981 at UC Santa Cruz but saw all too clearly into connection to art glass. His brightly colored vessels are like paintings in the round – and he does much more than make vessels.

The exhibit. Photo by Sarah Sala Moore

Another artist who thrives on variety is Susan Longini, who works in Fremont, and creates glass installations of etched glass, or of small glass forms climbing up a wall. She also creates beautiful glass 'quilts' of pate de verre, an ancient technique going back to Phoenicia.

Also in the exhibit are Mary B. White, David Ruth, Liz Strickland, and works from Bonny Doon Art Glass, Holy City Art Glass, and Lundberg Studios.